Maurice Baquet

Maurice Baquet is a cellist actor sportsman and French entertainer born May 26 1911 in VillefranchesurSaône and died July 8 2005 in NoisyleGrand Maurice Baquet was married twice with Jacqueline Figus 19202011 from October 31 1944 to June 20 1959 with whom they had a daughter Sophie and with Maria Yakimova from February 20 1964 until her death The couple had four children Anne Gregori All of them as well as Sophie born from her first marriage are actors and singers Stéphane light designer and Dimitri show producer A native of Beaujolais he took cello lessons at the Lyon conservatory and then those in Paris where he was in the same class as Henri Betti Paul Bonneau Léo Chauliac Henri Dutilleux Louiguy Pierre Spiers and Raymond Trouard and where he won first prize This did not prevent him from failing the entrance examination for the orchestra of the Paris Opera which motivated him to give up a classical career However he does not leave his cello behind On the contrary the instrument accompanies him throughout his life and we remember the wink that Joseph Losey allowed him during a short but moving sequence in Monsieur Klein In the early 1930s he rubbed shoulders with Pierre and Jacques Prévert Roger Blin and joined the famous October Group an agitprop group closely linked to the French Communist Party He set up his career as an actor there and devoted himself to beautiful texts in particular the poems of Aragon and Paul Éluard In 1935 he made his first feature film under the direction of Marc Allégret Les Beaux Jours A filmography of more than 80 titles follows His head as a resourceful and facetious kid also earned him the role of Bibi Fricotin then that of Ribouldingue in two films by Marcel Aboulker At the theater he plays in the operettas Andalousie and Gipsy by Francis Lopez He also performed at the cabaret sometimes accompanied on tap dance by Jacqueline Figus his wife since 1944 He also participated in ski mountaineering competitions as well as more humorous performances such as his ski descent from the stairs of the Butte Montmartre in 1946 In the same vein he also skied down the stairs from the Maison de la Radio following a bet In 1947 he presented with the whimsical SaintGranier a bicycleski allowing to go down the slopes Friend of Roger FrisonRoche we find him in the credits of Premier de cordée 1944 In 1955 he codirected Stars and Tempests with Gaston Rébuffat and Georges Tairraz which won the Grand Prix at the Trente Festival On July 13 1956 he made the first ascent of the southeast face of the Aiguille du Midi in Chamonix with Gaston Rébuffat sequences of which can be seen in Entre terre et ciel He was also a friend of Robert Doisneau who photographed him extensively6 and with whom he produced a work entitled Ballade pour violoncelle et chambre noire which testifies to their friendship He died at the age of 94 and is buried in the cemetery of Beauregard Ain